Pilbara

Pilbara is a region in western Australia where 38% of the world's iron ore is mined. 

There are about 25 mines, each one a gigantic open pit. 

Tracks for ore trains

Total mining of ore in this region is about 325 million tons a year, but estimates say the commercially accessible ore will still last for around 50 to 60 more years.

This is a very efficient operation, employing only 9,000 people to produce all that ore. Giant conveyor belts carry the ore most of the way from the pit face to the crusher, and from the crusher to the trains.

I was reading about this today because the NY Times has a story about BP's effort to decarbonize the mining region. Those giant trucks and excavators eat up diesel fuel, as do the conveyor belts, the crushers, the trains that haul the ore to the coast, and the giant ore freighters that carry it to Asia to be made into steel.

Steel-making generates an enormous amount of CO2, more than cars and trucks. Some of that is inevitable, because you have to add coal to ore to make steel, but the amount could still be reduced a whole lot. BP plans to do this by using the abundant solar and wind power available in this coastal desert to make hydrogen, which would be used to power all the machines.

Which would be great. But meanwhile I am just blown away by the scale of this operation.